TWO Condemns NARTH For Column Defending Slavery

TWO Calls On Palm Springs Mayor To Hold Focus on the Family and NARTH Accountable At Saturday’s Love Won Out Conference

Miami Beach, Fla. -Truth Wins Out expressed extreme disgust with the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality today (NARTH) after a racist column was discovered on the group’s website that defends slavery. The comments come only days before the openly gay, African American mayor of Palm Springs, Ron Oden, will appear at Focus on the Family’s Sept. 23 anti-gay “Love Won Out” conference, which is headlined by NARTH’s Executive Director Joseph Nicolosi.

The shocking opinion piece was penned by Gerald Schoenewolf, Ph.D., a member of NARTH’s “Scientific Advisory Committee,” in 2005 and re-posted last week by Timothy Kincaid on the website Ex-Gay Watch. According to Schoenwolf: “With all due respect, there is another way, or other ways, to look at the race issue in America,” wrote Schoenwolf.

“It could be pointed out, for example, that Africa at the time of slavery was still primarily a jungle, as yet uncivilized or industrialized. Life there was savage, as savage as the jungle for most people, and that it was the Africans themselves who first enslaved their own people. They sold their own people to other countries, and those brought to Europe, South America, America, and other countries, were in many ways better off than they had been in Africa. But if one even begins to say these things one is quickly shouted down as though one were a complete madman.”

The NARTH endorsed comments come at a time when the right wing is actively courting African-American groups. This column solidifies NARTH’s place as an intolerant hate group that specializes in the business of discrimination.

“People who spew racist screeds, like Schoenewolf, are called madmen becasue what they say is downright mad,” said TWO’s Executive Director Wayne Besen. “This column rips away the veneer of respectability that NARTH has worked to cultivate and has exposed their extremism. We strognly encourage Ron Oden to hold NARTH accountable for its racism and homophobia when he confronts the group on Saturday. “

Schoenewolf went on to say that the civil rights movement is about victimhood and criticized its tactics by comparing them to lynching.

“The irony is that the Civil rights Movement has been vehement about pointing out the hysterical lynchings that took place in the Old South, but comletely blind to its own hysterical tactics.”

These remarks follow a screed written by another NARTH Advisory Board Member, Dr. Berger, who said that gender variant children should be “ridiculed” by their classmates into conforming. Despite promotion child abuse, Berger remains on NARTH’s advisory board. Today, TWO filed an official complaint with The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario.

“It is increasingly clear that NARTH is a repository of fanatics who espouse quack-like theories,” said Besen.”The group’s efforts to portray itself as mainstream are continuously undermined by its own crackpot members and the bizarre ideas they espouse.”

TWO is a non-profit think tank and educational organization that counters right wing disinformation campaigns, debunks the ex-gay myth, and provides accurate information about the lives of GLBT people.

About the Author

Wayne Besen is the Founding Executive Director of Truth Wins Out and author of “Anything But Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth” (Haworth, 2003). In 2010, Besen was awarded the “Visionary Award” at the Out Music Awards for organizing the American Prayer Hour, an event which shined a spotlight on the role American evangelicals played in the introduction of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

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Truth Wins Out is a non-profit organization that fights the "ex-gay" myth and antigay religious extremism.

TWO monitors anti-LGBT organizations, documents their lies and exposes wrongdoing. TWO specializes in turning information into action by organizing, advocating and fighting for truth, integrity, and equality for sexual minorities.